Carbon capture shows Mechanicaltree™ in partnership with Arizona State University – Can you grow that?
MechanicalTree™ will capture carbon from the atmosphere and help accelerate the fight against climate change
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
In a major innovation in the fight against climate change, Carbon Collect Ltd. developed MechanicalTree™ that is widely regarded as a leading technology in efforts to reduce carbon emissions globally. Combining the research and innovation of an Arizona State University professor of engineering Klaus Lacknerand following a two-year focused engineering and design program, the first commercial-scale MechanicalTree™ was announced this week by Carbon Collect on Arizona State University’s Tempe Campus. Carbon Collect was established in Ireland.
Carbon Collect’s MechanicalTree™ is up to a thousand times more efficient at removing CO2 from the air than a natural tree. The carbon obtained from Mechanical Trees™ can be sequestered or sold for reuse in a variety of applications including food and beverage, industrial, agricultural and energy. Future research in emerging areas such as synthetic fuels holds the promise of expanding use cases for sequestered carbon.
Unlike other Direct Air Capture technologies, MechanicalTree™ can remove CO2 from the atmosphere without the use of blowers or fans. Instead, this technology uses natural wind to deliver air through the system. This makes it a passive, lower-cost and scalable solution that is commercially viable. When deployed on a large scale, the technology could help limit the growing amount of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere and help counteract the effects of global warming.
“We are excited to launch the first commercial-scale MechanicalTree™ at Arizona State University, which is a valuable partner in the development of our project. We believe we have developed a practical and scalable solution to combat the effects of C0.2. Our goal now is to accelerate the global climate effort and contribute to reducing carbon emissions over the next decade and beyond. I would like to acknowledge the invaluable work in our project by Klaus Lackner and ASU Center for Negative Carbon Emissions,” speak Reyad FezzaniVice President of Carbon Collection.
The MechanicalTree™ installed on the ASU campus represents an entirely new shape for single-column, direct-air intake systems and discs. If deployed widely, trees could help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In operation, MechanicalTree™ rises to a height of 33 feet (10 meters) to collect carbon from the surrounding air. Once filled with carbon, the stack of discs retracts into the base unit and removes the sucked carbon from the air.
A technical program was initiated by Carbon Collect in March 2020 at the start of the Covid-19 lockdown. In two years, the company moved from concept to the first commercial-scale MechanicalTree™. Carbon Collect and ASU are working with the US Department of Energy to develop technical blueprints for US carbon farms.
“Carbon dioxide is a waste that we give off every time we drive a car or turn on the lights in the house,” says Lackner. “Carbon Collect’s MechanicalTree™ can recycle it, remove it from the atmosphere for landfill, or use it as an industrial gas.”
Carbon Collect is now live from its first round of funding, with a focus on delivering the initial engineering program and launching the first MechanicalTree™. The company intends to advance to a second round of funding before the end of 2022, which will be an important preparatory step for scaling and implementing its business plan.
Carbon Collect plans to scale up the technology starting with a series of direct carbon capture farms that will capture around 1,000 tons of CO2 Every day, the designs are being completed.
Pól Ó Móráin, CEO of Carbon Collect Ltd. “Our passive process is the development of a carbon capture technology that is economically and technologically feasible on a large scale in a reasonably short period of time,” said.
Carbon Collect’s team includes a group of leading technology and business executives, as well as experienced engineers and scientists. The company holds the exclusive global copyright to Dr. Klaus Lackner’s significant innovations at ASU, and the company has licensed the ASU designs invented by Dr. Lackner. The company then designed and built the MechanicalTree™ and continues to fund ongoing research into carbon removal at ASU. Arizona State University is one of a group of shareholders of Carbon Collect Ltd. The company is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland and has a wholly owned subsidiary, Carbon Collect Inc. in Delaware, USA. Vice President and CEO is US-based Reyad Fezzani and CEO, Pól Ó Móráin, based in Europe.
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